On the swaying carriage, Hua Zhi leaned against the carriage wall, lost in thought.
She had once believed that scholars were utterly useless, and had looked down with contempt upon all those rules of the Hua Family. Yet after attending two scholarly discourse gatherings and witnessing two more with her own eyes, she had gradually come to understand why civil officials were used to govern the nation.
They might have all manner of flaws, but before they became the rot that gnawed at the country, they had truly been men of ambition with landscapes of possibility in their hearts. In recent years, those who had been beheaded or demoted included men who had once stood their ground without yielding an inch at the Hua Family’s discourse gatherings for the sake of their convictions. Yet the officialdom was too corrupt — no one could emerge from it with their integrity fully intact. Even the Hua Family itself had amassed a vast fortune, had they not?
Thinking of the Hua Family, thinking of the Discourse Tower, thinking of the library that had once stirred in her a feeling of happiness, and then recalling today’s visit to the Wei Family, Hua Zhi felt a turbulent surge rise in her chest. Only through comparison could one know how exceptional the Hua Family’s discourse gatherings had truly been.
She stretched out her foot and knocked against something. Glancing over, she saw Hua Ling and only then remembered she had forgotten all about her. Rubbing her forehead, she asked, “Were you frightened?”
Hua Ling shook her head. Seeing that her eldest sister had spoken, she finally dared to make a sound. “I wasn’t scared. Eldest Sister said that when a dog bites someone, it’s the owner’s fault. So even seeing Wei Chengxi, I wasn’t afraid.”
Hua Zhi laughed. And wasn’t that exactly right — if a dog frightened you, were you supposed to go and frighten the dog back in retaliation? If you had the chance, you naturally had to beat the dog until it hurt and feared you before the debt could be considered repaid.
“Don’t take their words to heart. We won’t be picking a son-in-law from among them — I can’t even be bothered with the lot of them.”
Hua Ling pressed her lips together and said quietly, “Not getting married isn’t so bad either.”
“Hmm?”
Hua Ling lifted her head. “Not getting married is quite fine. No matter which family one married into, none of them could be as good as our Hua Family.”
“There’s no need to make up your mind just yet — who’s to say there isn’t someone suitable? The men today were only a portion of what’s out there. The rest of them are better than those ones. We’ll look slowly.”
“Eldest Sister, you really do hold them in contempt,” Hua Ling covered her mouth and laughed until her eyes curved into crescents. The disdain was written plainly across her sister’s face.
Hua Zhi let out a soft snort and made no attempt to deny it. She truly did look down on those who had been wielded as weapons by the Wei Family. Not a shred of the conviction and principles a scholar ought to have remained in them.
The carriage gradually came to a stop. Hua Zhi stepped out and immediately caught sight of her cousin and Yu Xiasheng, which made her want to press her palm to her forehead. How had she forgotten that her cousin would certainly not let her walk alone? They had been so close — surely he had overheard everything she had just said?
Zhu Ziwen smiled with an air of meaningful amusement. “Official Chen had matters to attend to and left us at the road junction ahead, asking me to let you know.”
“I’m grateful for that.” Hua Zhi, supported by Ying Chun’s hand, stepped down from the carriage. “Thank you for the trouble, Cousin and Master Yu.”
Yu Xiasheng’s gaze drifted, unbidden, toward Hua Ling — again and again — while his mouth said it was no trouble.
Zhu Ziwen, seeing that his cousin’s expression was displeased, refrained from causing further disturbance and cupped his hands in a bow. “Rest well. If there’s any news from the Wei Family’s side, I’ll come and tell you.”
“Very well.” Hua Zhi gave Yu Xiasheng a slight curtsy as well and then went inside. Hua Ling hurried after her, not glancing once at Yu Xiasheng from beginning to end.
As is customary — good news stays behind closed doors while bad news spreads a thousand miles — before long, what had transpired at the Wei Family had spread throughout the capital. Many people broke into laughter.
Any civil official worth his salt would have cast envious eyes upon the discourse gatherings. Never mind that these gatherings seemed to yield nothing tangible — the benefits were all invisible. One only had to look at the Hua Family to understand. Never mind that they had been stripped of their property and sent into exile — in the hearts of scholars, they still acknowledged Hua Yizheng. It was precisely these men who had lifted the Hua Family’s reputation step by step, leaving the great mass of civil officials so far behind they couldn’t even catch up at full gallop.
If one could seize the discourse gatherings and bring them into one’s own household, wouldn’t all those benefits become one’s own? Only they had not expected Wei Jing to act so swiftly — while they were still making their plans, that piece of meat had already landed in the Wei Family’s bowl.
Now that they knew the bowl had shattered and the hand had been cut, they were naturally delighted. With the Hua Family gone, someone had to take over the hosting of the discourse gatherings, did they not? If the Wei Family couldn’t manage it, there were still others!
And spreading alongside this news was Hua Zhi’s name — though this time, it was not because of her beauty, her temperament, or her business ventures, but because of her scholarship and learning.
After returning home, Hua Zhi shut herself indoors and refused to go out. Compared to all the gossip and idle chatter, what she was far more curious about was what had detained Yanxi’s steps — he had not come to dinner in the evening. Could it be that he had been dispatched somewhere again?
Hua Zhi shook her head, dismissing the thought herself. No, that couldn’t be right. Even if he truly had been sent away, Yanxi would certainly have left word for her.
Gu Yanxi had not been dispatched. He had been kept at the Emperor’s side. As dusk fell, a small party of men appeared in Hualin Lane.
One lane, two households — with one now absent, a faint air of desolation was unavoidable.
The Emperor looked up. Above the gate, the two characters for “Hua Manor” had grown dusty. In the faint light, only a dim outline could be made out. He suddenly recalled that these characters had been written in the hand of the Founding Emperor himself — the Hua Family had taken root here for exactly as long as this plaque had hung above their gate.
“Laifu.”
Laifu understood at once. He stepped forward, tore away the seal, and shoved the gate open with force. A gate that had not been opened for a full year let out a deep, heavy groan — a sound that made the hearts of those who heard it sink along with it.
The Emperor entered with his hands clasped behind his back, paying no heed to the disordered courtyard, strolling along the covered corridor inward as if he were in no hurry at all.
Laifu lit a lantern and attended at his side. Gu Yanxi followed behind the two of them without a word, quietly surveying the Hua Family’s old residence. Though he had once slipped in here on his own, he had confined himself only to Hua Zhi’s courtyard and had not gone anywhere else.
“Go to the library.”
The Hua Family’s library had been converted from a side courtyard. It occupied a large space, spread across two floors, and had been built on a raised foundation to guard against flooding.
At this moment, the library’s doors stood wide open, and two windows on the upper floor had been left ajar as well.
The Emperor looked up briefly, then stepped forward and climbed the stairs. He stood in the doorway and surveyed the shambles within.
Several bookshelves leaned at angles, and books lay scattered everywhere — which only made the shelves along the walls, still neatly arranged, stand out all the more.
Laifu, thinking of the old master’s passionate love for books, felt a stir of discomfort in his chest. He lowered his voice in gentle counsel: “Your Majesty, there is hardly a place to set foot in here. Perhaps we might go elsewhere?”
The Emperor bowed his head and gazed for a moment, then bent down and picked up the books blocking the path, setting them aside. Laifu and Gu Yanxi worked alongside him, and before long they had cleared a way to the staircase leading to the second floor.
But upon going up, they found the second floor nearly half-empty.
Laifu explained in a quiet voice: “This old servant recalls that when the Hua Family members moved away, their clothing and bedding were counted carefully and packed, and the bulk of their luggage was books.”
The Emperor stepped inside and picked up a volume, flipping through it. He saw annotations within, and then examined several more volumes — the same throughout. It needed no further explanation — the difference between the upper and lower floors was plain. The books up here were most likely those the Hua Family members had used themselves, which was why they had carried away as many as they possibly could. With these books, bearing the accumulated effort of the Hua Family across generations, the younger members of the family might not be without hope of making a recovery.
He closed the windows on the upper floor, came out of the library, and personally shut the doors behind him.
“Go to the Discourse Tower.”
The Hua Family had only two two-story structures — the library and the Discourse Tower. The two buildings stood gazing at each other across a distance, and a short walk brought them to it. Here, too, the doors stood open; it was plain this place had also been searched at the time.
Laifu entered first and lit the lamps. The moment the light rose, the Emperor narrowed his eyes and stood for a long while without speaking, looking at this place that could be taken in at a single glance.
There was none of what Hua Zhi had described — no coarse tea, no scholars, no Hua Yizheng. All he could see were the meditation cushions scattered across a corner of the floor. Beyond that, the space was utterly empty.